


You and I

by VoyagerSoa



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Comics)
Genre: Brotherly Love, Character Determined Narration, Gen, Story Collection, multiple POVs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 18:39:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18610255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VoyagerSoa/pseuds/VoyagerSoa
Summary: The War of the Realms is over. Malekith has been defeated. Midgard stands as the only realm to truly survive the conflict, and Thor--now the King of Asgard--must rule over what remains. In finding Loki fishing beside a hut in the outskirts of Asgard, the two decide to delay the inevitable by sharing their points of view over various stories from their past, exploring their complexities and flaws along the way.





	You and I

**Author's Note:**

> Sliiightly AU considering War of the Realms hasn't concluded yet and you never know *what* Aaron has in store for these two until it's over. Operates under the assumption that Malekith is dead and Thor crowned king, with Loki being a non factor in the war itself. Some stories will feature mythology, some my original ideas. Enjoy, and bring a tissue or two!

Oh, immortal Asgardia, what has Malekith done to you?

Golden walls, barren and dessicated. It is not until its crumbled walls break away brick by brick into fields that live and movement come into being, so rife with it that Thor has seen it this way maybe never. Wild boar trudge past underbrush, searching for truffles; harvest mice watch him atop perches of daisy; sparrows click and titter, nesting in low acacia trees. Although the destruction to Asgardia may be total ruin, he could take comfort that her mother Asgard had finally begun healing in the wake of that damnable elf’s scourge. Should he had been given any other circumstance, he’d appreciate this better.

Alas, his is always a chase.

Evening had fallen when Thor found him, toasting fish from a net against the backsplash of a familiar waterfall. Neither of them make any snap decisions—the fish keep toasting and are, eventually, pulled from the fire. Two emerald eyes look at Thor, mild for as much effort it had taken to bring him here. This is the same place they had faced one another many centuries ago, before the first Ragnarök.

Loki speaks first, as he does always.

“Do you think it ironic?”

Thor does not say anything.

Loki warms his hands beside the fire. “Suppose I must speak to myself then, to prevent the air from becoming too chilly.” He tosses another fish in and takes a bit out of the one he had just baked. “In truth, this wasn’t where I planned to end up. I would have, maybe, chosen some annex or forgotten dimension, but my seidr is weak and I cannot bear to see what has become of the city. I figure that fair to you. If it is you that is here and not that bloody elf in disguise, you must have won. Congratulations on your coronation, Thor. That war must’ve been Hel.” There’s nothing glad about his inflection.

Thor crosses his arms. “The war is your fault, Loki. It was always your fault. Malekith almost won, and nigh all realms save for Midgard are what Asgardia is now. Because of you.”

“Because of me.”

“I know better than to ask why,” he says, sighing. “You are what you are. I cannot ever hope for different. You are my brother-sister no matter what I will, Loki.”

“Are you here to punish me?” His eyes are on a renewed, returned Mjolnir, tied for Thor’s waist. Its owner does not move from where he has seated. Then, in a quieter tone, “Kill me?”

“Of that, I am undecided.” Thor leans to take the fish, biting into it with some recourse. “How would I? You punish yourself enough with these games. Even I am aware that remorse is not beyond you, Loki. I know this was not what you wanted, least of all when you backstabbed our mother and decried it the only way to save her. Even if I wanted to, where would I take thee? There are no irons with your son’s entrails, no rock to bind you by and a viper to dangle over your head. I am King of Asgard and my kingdom is empty.”

They look at each other, studying their faces. They share a wordless wonder for how it has come to this, over and over. Thor chasing Loki down at the ends of the earth. Loki running from him, himself, and the tides of fate. Being devoured by his own giant father and still not dying, just so he could slink away and watch his brother clean the mess he himself had made, however inadvertently, however indirectly, and now he had no excuse as he did with the Dark Celestials in saying that he had to be securing a hero’s victory against the inevitable by being damnation’s frontrunner. Before and after, it has always come to this.

They are both tired.

“Do you remember?” Asks Loki, ruefully. “When we first met?”

“All those millennia ago? Of course.”

“Tell me, Thor. Your side of the story. I have only ever had my own. We should… share, I think.”

Thor considers this. His barest instinct is that this proposition has to be some kind of smokescreen, a means for Loki to distract him and escape. But where would Loki go? He is right in saying his seidr is weak, a mixture from almost dying and all this running. There wouldn’t be a single portal to leap through or a vanishing spell to throw out. So he clears his throat, finishes off the fish, and says this:

“Very well. I remember it was in the evening at Asgard…”

 

* * *

 

 

I’d been playing with a wooden sword, imaging myself in all sorts of battles. Trolls. Giants. Even some of our kin that I did not like. Claiming glory for all Aesir. I noticed nothing whatsoever unusual until I came down to bed down, and as I was headed for my quarters saw a whole flock of nursemaids gossiping in a corridor adjacent. They were crowing and whispering, sometimes stopping to exchange glances with me, only to return to their talking. I’d have given them no heed, but I was left curious as to what they could be saying. So I went over and asked the maidens myself. Couldn’t have been any older than seven. Father was out in Jotunheim doing what I had been doing with broadsword instead of driftwood.

“What is it you’re talking about?”

One shot a look. “Go to your quarters and sleep, little prince. It is of no concern to you. You’ll feel better in the morning.”

This I believed not.

“You are whispering,” I said, insisting. “I should know for what.”

They paused, then another said, “If you must know, little prince, go to the foyer of the castle and wait for your father’s return.”

“Father’s coming home tonight? Wonderful!” I had already started sprinting down the hall.

My mind was swollen with question. Had Father finally defeated King Laufey in combat? Would he bring the giant’s head home for us to see? I had never seen a giant before, much less their king, and was excited to know what these beasts had to been like in the flesh even if it was going to be raised onto Father’s mantlepiece. I ran through the castle and stopped in the foyer behind one of its massive pillars, hiding in case Mother found me and disapproved of my wandering past nightfall. By when the doors of the fort blew open, I had to have been bursting with wonder and glee.

You were there.

Being held by Father and another of his shieldbearers, but you were there. Allspeak not having taken root in us then, all I heard from you were furious spats of jotun-tongue that I couldn’t understand. I was in awe. Even for such a small thing, smaller than even myself, you fought with such fury. I stared from my hiding place at the column as Father and the shieldbearer brought you down the corridor I had with the gossiping nursemaids. I followed quickly behind, them not noticing me. I think they were too caught up with you to pay me any care. I thought about calling to Father, but I had nothing to say.

_This had to be a giant,_ I thought. _A real life giant! But so small!_ I had heard rumors that even the babies of jotun were as tall I was, but you—for what I could see, what with your thrashing—were around my age. I kept my pace until they handed you off to the nursemaids, ducking into a waiting bedroom. Now I could call on Father.

“Father!” I said. “Who is that, Father?”

He did not hear. He simply went away, passing me by, shieldbearer strongly behind. His face was darkened, like shadows. I was far more interested in you to ask what he was so concerned with, and watched peeking from the doorway as the nursemaids dressed you. You didn’t seem to have the same fight in you as you did with Father. You just stood, silent and glaring. I won’t ever forget that glare. It was terrible in a way I would never find how to describe. The maids continued to dress you in both tunic and robe, like a prince of Asgard. I hid again for when they were done and had nothing more to do with you, sneaking inside the room before the door shut behind us and the key turned.

I heard more voices beyond the door, discussing you. It must’ve been Father and Mother. I could only hear so much, but Mother asked Father what you were to be called. He said “Loki” and I heard no more.

_Loki,_ I thought. _That’s an interesting name._ So I turned to you, you staring at me, and said:

“Hello, Loki. I’m Thor.” I had to have been smiling ear to ear. “Nice to meet you.”

You did not say anything for a while. I had started to think I’d spoken out of turn, said something wrong, or maybe you didn’t understand me. I stood there dumbly beside the door, just waiting for you to do something. After a time you climbed into the sheets of the bed and told me, very hearse, for me to go away.

I heard it like this—“Guh auhway.” I wasn’t sure if it was you or the sheets.

“Umm,” I said. “I can’t. They locked us in. You’re in here with me.”

Your head poked up. “They did?”

I nodded. “You speak Asgardian?”

“Not very well. Only heard it from soldiers.”

“Just fine,” I said. “They dressed you like me.”

“Want me to be prince,” you said, and you sounded so wistful. I had no idea what you had to be sad about—that, to me, was wonderful!

“So I have a brother?” I was ecstatic. “Cool!” It was about all I could say.

“Maybe,” you said. “I don’t know.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Heh,” murmurs Loki. “That is about how I remember it. You always had the candor of an excitable puppy. Never once did you stop to think about that your new brother was a giant much less a frost giant, least not right then.”

Thor rumbles. “We were both children then, Loki. Even if I’d heard stories about the jotun since I was an infant, they were only that—stories. It wasn’t as though Asgardia faced them at her walls daily; we were the invaders in Jotunheim to put an end to Laufey’s bloody reign. The death of our grandfather Bor only served to quicken it. You were by all means a complete surprise, alien to me.”

“The fish?”

“Good enough,” Thor concedes. Loki tosses to more on the fire from his net. Has he been spending his entire day netting fish? Certainly far cry from the invincible, scheming trickster, for as much as he could sympathize with that. Loki, as he does most everything, chose this one way or the other.

“I wanted to be there,” Loki says. “At first. I had no way of expressing such. I wasn’t about to lavish my then-kidnapper in Father with thanks for taking me from the death rattle of my trueblood father, for as much as I despised Laufey for what he had managed to do to me in the short span I was alive. Giants know war, so I fought. But I was merely a child, and a tiny one at that. It was useless. They brought me home as intended.”

Thor quirks a brow. “Is that why you knew Asgardian? Because you had planned to be taken?”

“In some sense. I was always clever, Thor. Learning the language of my enemy played into that, even if a child as young as myself did not necessarily realize this. Proved to be useful, as they did not take me to the springs of Yggdrasil to grant me an Aesir’s body until I spoke it fluently to their tastes without the Allspeak.”

“They forced this?” This is the first Thor’s ever heard of this. Maybe Loki’s idea of sharing stories had real merit after all. “To what end?”

“To what end, he says,” chuckles Loki. “Oh, dear brother, how you are naive even as king. Of course, they wanted to erase that I had ever been a frost giant. Father was bound by Bor’s dying wish that he would have to bring home the son of his sworn nemesis, ‘tis true, but whatever he did after he had was left to him to decide. What kind wanted to admit he had adopted the child of Laufey, and his pygmy son at that? It made his victory all the more complex. He possessed Laufey’s head, but also Laufey’s greatest regret. What would you have done, King of Asgard?”

Thor’s jaw hardens, but he is quiet, save for grabbing another fish.

“So you understand.” His eyes are on him like green vipers. “I knew it fluently sooner than I let on. But, as you know, I still had that fight in me. Asgardia was a confusing place, especially for one that had never before seen the outside of straw huts and mud roofs until I was taken. The only one I ever liked was you.”

Thor grunts, eating. “And even in that you changed your mind, like you always do.” He does no say so with derision, only matter of fact. Loki, although flush with brief annoyance, agrees.

“Shall I?” he asks. “On my side of the story?”

“I don’t see myself going anywhere fast,” Thor replies. “I am still undecided for what to do with you in return for what you’ve wrought against Asgard and her neighboring realms, Loki, and I find myself taking to this idea of sharing stories. And the first is good.”

“Well,” Loki begins, “You should know what I was thinking just then…”

 

* * *

 

 

I thought, with sincerity, that I would have to kill you.

Before you demand to know how that could be, let me tell you—in Jotunheim, it was what would’ve been expected. There are only ever once prince to a king, such that it is the expectation for the king to raise his firstborn son to succeed him one day in open combat. If, in the case of twins or multiple princes, they would duel for glory of being recognized by their father. It was to my knowledge that Asgard had to have been the same except also the hive of our natural enemies, the Aesir. So I thought and thought, but soon realized you would not behave this way to me if what I anticipated was true. Fortunate. Back then, I could scarcely wield a blade. You would have bested me without effort—I didn’t learn sorcery until well after this.

Once I’d gotten past the wondering about how I might kill you, I was taken aback. When I was Laufey’s ignoble son, I daydreamed about you daily. Rather, what you must’ve been like. How couldn’t I? The Aesir were about everything my father talked about, and he rarely addressed me otherwise considering it was to his belief that I’d been sent to him as punishment from the gods. I knew that if I existed, so too would a prince of Asgard. I imagined him—aggressive, warlike. Foolish, not like me. Blue eyed and blond haired. As it happened, I only had the last part right. Still, I thought you as ugly as you must have thought me until I slept in the springs of Yggdrasil and woke as one of you.

(“I didn’t think you _ugly,_ necessarily,” retorts Thor, for as little as he could hide his amusement. Loki continues.)

“You don’t know?” You said to me. To whit, I knew they’d have me crowned, but I couldn’t find how to tell this to you in your language. In my mother tongue I was articulate, witty even for a child. In yours I was clumsy and indelicate, knew it, and hated it.

“Maybe,” I repeated, for lack of anything else. You seemed unconvinced. “… Locked us in.”

“Because they didn’t want you to wander off, probably,” you said, reassuring that I was not the prisoner I had imagined myself as being. “But that’s okay. I wander of all the time!”

Before I could have caught myself, we were both laughing. You were funny. I expected a warlord in the kith of my trueblood father, the little warrior he was so despondent not to find in I, but you were pleasant. Warm. Unlike anyone I had come across in Jotunheim, were it’d been far too dreary to even smile most days. I wanted to know more about you, but I couldn’t find any way to say this that you would understand. Remember, Thor, it was your privilege to not know a word in my tongue, not mine.

So I said: “I’m not small.”

“For a giant, you are. And you sound like a giant, and look like one, I think. Maybe it’s why Father brought you home. Nothing in Jotunheim to be doing for the small.” You were smiling. You’d been smiling since you first stepped into my room. “Well, Loki, if you’re going to be my new brother, I don’t care if you’re small. I don’t want a brother bigger than me. I’m supposed to be the biggest,” you said, nodding, perchance thinking I’d do the same. I simply stared.

“Thank… you.” It was, as far as I remember, the very first someone had not talked about my size to demean me, as on the nose you were. I couldn’t have known then, but my eyes became set with tears. That—and the gravity of what had happened to me—finally found its weight. I was despondent.

“Oh…” You were watching me carefully. “You’re crying. It’s okay…” Then you climbed onto the bed with me, something I would have thrown you away for had you done it a moment before, and hugged me. Hugged me! You were so warm. I had never felt such warmth in my life. My sobs ended immediately. I was taken by such shock, such surprise, that it took me long to return the gesture, but when I did, I couldn’t let go.

“You’re going to be alright,” you said to me, and I believed you. “We’re brothers now. That means we can play games together and stuff! Cool, fun stuff! There’s no need to cry. And we’ll have the same mother and father! Father’s not that scary, really, just a bit stiff…”

When we had let go, the door had been unlocked, Father there to see us. He looked though he were about to faint.

“ _Thor._ There you are. We were searching the entire castle for you. How did you get in here?”

“Nobody stopped me, Father. And I wanted to see Loki,” you said, gingerly standing from the bed and approaching him. He picked you up with a single hand and put you on his shoulders.

“That doesn’t surprise me. You’ve always been a courageous boy, Thor. But now’s the time you both went to bed. There’ll be a feast in the morning to celebrate our triumph against the giants.”

I’d been silent, not daring to look at Father. My fingers were clutching the sheets, face red all over. I’d been so embarrassed.

“I’ll go to bed,” you whined. “But I want Loki to have the same quarters I do! We’re brothers now! I don’t want him to be lonely his first night in Asgardia, Father. Ple-e-e-ase?”

Father grumbled a bit, acknowledging me finally. “Very well,” he said, after a pause. “Come along, Loki. Don’t fall behind.”

And I realize something now, Thor…

 

* * *

 

 

“…it’s only because of you that I couldn’t have ever felt much alone.” Loki is fingering his net. “No more fish. Just you and I.”

_You and I._

Thor thinks about rising, taking Mjolnir from its scabbard and getting done with it. But there is no such thing. He could strike Loki down at any moment but he would, and he would always and always, find the means to get back up. For all their sins, flaws and grievances, there wouldn’t ever be a world in which there is to be a Thor without Loki, or Loki without Thor. No Norns had ever needed to spin any prophecies about immutable destiny for this to be so. Since that very day on Asgard, they have been inseparable.

“Loki,” he sighs. “Why must you be this way? Why can’t we ever work together for any longer than a sunset? Why did you have to murder your child self, steal his skin and wear it so proudly that I must see you with disgust for what you have done, let alone the war you’ve brought to our realms? Is this all there is to you? Death and war and endings?”

_Death and war and endings._

There is at first no reply. But then Loki’s head perks from the embers of the fire dying slowly, and he and Thor stare. They look. And they each know already for what he is about to say.

“I was always meant to bring Ragnarök,” he says, and it rings hollow. “No matter what I have ever done to escape it. No matter what I have ever done to destroy it. I’d sooner destroy myself if it meant anything, but it wouldn’t. It hasn’t. Not even my trueblood father’s own teeth could do the grisly business.” He turns his head aside. “But the sun is low now, and the fire is cooling. I have enjoyed our stories so far. Why not stay a while so that we might, at least, enjoy a tenuous peace? You are King of Asgard now. Father is not keeping you beholden to return to him replete with my head as he once did Laufey’s.”

Then, a lull. There is quiet. Loki rises from his perch in gathering more firewood beside the hut, and Thor remains still. His hands do not reach for Mjolnir. The hammer stays where it has been since he had come here. It does not sing for him to wield it. Loki returns and throws the wood at the fire that gladly devours it with a fresh gasp of flame. The moon will be up soon, untouched by the death that has seen them all in Asgard. They are no longer looking.

“There is nothing?” Thor asks, as though addressing air. “Nothing. Not in three thousand years have we found it. Not in three Ragnarök have we broken it. Never for good. Never long enough to savor it.”

He hangs his head. “I suppose all’s that left are the stories, aren’t they, Loki? Just the stories?”

“Just the stories.”

“Gods in the Nine.” His heart is as heavy as stone, and he presumes Loki’s is much the same. They rarely if ever have strayed from feeling when it came to this. “Then bring on the stories, and may they never end.”

He, too, now rises from his seat, approaching Loki. Loki is at first unsure of what to make of his intent, but allows him. Thor then sits beside him and pulls him into a hug tighter than even the one they shared as boys. Against everything, against the prophecies and the destinies and the what-will-bes, there are two gods and their immutable brotherhood. Their invincible fraternal love. And Loki hugs him back. Their bond will be stronger than the end. It always has been. And, so Thor believes, if there must be an end, they need not rush toward it.

So they hug. It’s the least they might do. Thor holds Loki as delicately as possible, contrasting sharply the rage he harbored for him learning the War of the Realms once again had fallen on his shoulders.

“I will always be your brother, Loki,” he says, clutching the other’s head in one hand and his back in the other. “No matter what the hags have forced you into being.”

“As I to you, Thor.” They draw apart, and smile. “But it is your turn, is it not? Don’t let a god of legend unduly steal your spotlight while we make the end a pleasant jog in lieu of runaway sprint.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Thor clears his throat. “I could start on the day we first crossed swords…”

“Because I had stolen your sweet rolls? Oh, please, now that I must hear your side of the story…”

And they laugh.


End file.
